Spilling the Beans

Now that year-end holiday lights are on in town, I thought it wouldn't be too early to announce here one of My 10 Tiniest Yet Most Eye-Opening Findings of the Year 2005, which is...

"Cooking dry-packed beans can vapor away the most stubborn stress."


Okay, here's how it happened:

1. On a debilitating weekend in September, I was cooking dry-packed feijao preto beans.
(instead of S&W cans, to make my first feijoada)

2. As some of the black beans started "dancing" in heating water, I immediately but carefully turned the heat low to simmer, when

3. I felt my face muscles sort of twitching. (Palsy or bug-bite?)

4. Not palsy. Not a bug-bite either. I was pouting and smirking into the pot, like a red-cheeked farmer taming little perky chicks in a barn. (Shhh...! Good, gooood.)

5. "No. Oh no. Finally I've come to that point. I mean, to bean-sit."

6. "But hey, see how my tight frowned uni-brow is going apart back into two brows at the same time? It must be that the bean-induced face-jerk reaction is not a sign of insanity, but a good sign of relieving stress! (Smirk)

And now I even wonder if "coddle your beans" has ever been/will be used as an idiom meaning relax.


写真のは Great northern beans といいます。
乾燥時の大きさは黒豆と同じくらい、けど
なんせ「グレート」なだけに
調理中「アメリカーン！」に膨らむのでは、となんだか不安。
でも結局、仕上がりサイズも黒豆どまりでした。
しかも　色ツヤも味も優しげで。

Done Nidone

Ultimately, as far as I am concerned, learning a foreign language (English and Spanish. Si, estoy estudiando espanol!) might be all about re-appreciating my own language, Japanese.

That's what I think whenever I come across Japanese words that sound undeniably to-the-point, like Nidone.

Literally, Nidone (nee-doh-nE) means second (= nido) sleep (= ne). But don't you think how easy it is to picture this morning scene by just mumbling the word: you half-wake up to the sound of neighbors/roomies doing their I've-gotta-run stuff, i.e. microwaving, hair-blowing, door-banging... But you are in your own cocoon and you just growl, dully yet nealty pull together blankets, rolling back 210 degrees for another doze.

Well, at least it is for me. And maybe that's why I have Nidone so often, I mean, just because I want to say the six-letter word: Nidone shite (I had second sleep, so...)

No? Not a good excuse for always barely making it in time?


[ネビエちゃん]

あと、「ふて寝」「寝冷え」も
わかりやすい響きだと思います
（し、よくします）。